My Mediterranean Garden Grew So Wild During My 17 Month-Absence In Southern Spain

This is my first post in the community after many months of absence due to a tragic event . I am glad to be back here and interact with you all! Coming straight from Malaga International Airport to our house, the first thing I did was to inspect my Mediterranean garden. I am not even sure if I could call this a garden since my purpose of planting those succulents and cactus plants was to just make the plot look greener. The plants here were mostly given to me by my German girlfriend who used to be our neighbor in another area in the countryside.

Before the COVID/pandemic broke out three years ago, we were at the verge of leaving the house as we finalized our vacation that year. We had luck to have left the county since COVID was about to sweep Spain seriously at that time. It has been 19 long months that we haven't set foot on the property and when we came afterwards, I was surprised that all the plants did not suffer from the heat. They were not watered at all during our absence. The only thing was our town had plenty of rain and that was the best part as the plants grew wild.

We were supposed to come here last year and two weeks before our flight in Sept, the Husband sadly suffered a cardiac arrest and passed-away. That was also the reason why I wasn't here for 17 months.

We have a Spanish friend who takes care of the wild grasses inside the property. He didn't need to water the plants because we were closing everything including electricity for the waterpump when we left for the home base.That is also the reason why I only have succulents and cactus plants. They are the best for a Mediterranean garden as they are almost maintenance free. We had experienced a long term absence from the property the first time during the pandemic, but now it was a different situation because it did not rain all throughout. It has been reported that the dams in Andalucia have only 10% water reserve. I am trying to water them now as often as possible to compensate for the loss of water for the drought period.

These two Euphorbias had been planted before we left last year. They were small branches that fell off the ones from the right side of the gate due to the harsh wind that is always visiting our town during wintertime.

This is the berry or I do not know what to call this. During Spring, the main tips of Euphorbia candelabrum get yellow flowers and blossoms into such fruit. I am not sure whether these are edible though.

This is Aloe Vera that I planted before we left for the homebase. It is a pity that I did not see their flowers. The flowers normally blossom in Spring with a strong orange/reddish color and sometimes with yellow ones too.

Aloe Nobilis

Portulacaria afra, an alive and kicking succulent that sustained without water.

Wild Marigold

The Agave blues...

One has to control the growth of the agave plant as it would produce plenty of newbies on its side. This agave is similar to the blue Agave they use to make Tequila in Mexico. According to the locals here, the ones that we have in the garden are called Agave sisalana and they are cultivated in Southern Mexico to use the fibers of each stalk to make twine and rope.

I have experienced cutting the hard stalks one by one before....and I swear, it was an awful lot of work to do because I did not have the proper tool. And if one is doing it under the glaring sun, you'll be exausted in a short period of time, trust me!

This time, a Campesino (Farmer) who is an expert in cutting such plants helped me over the weekend. At least he had a battery powered-cutter and he did all the 8 plants in 30 minutes.

Some Agave varieties have a spine in the tip of their stalk. What I do is I cut these tips to avoid being pinched.

The heavy stalks of the Agave plant.

Cylindropuntia

There are many varieties and this one here is one of many. It has a beautiful pink or yellow flower which is so beautiful. The one in my plot had been so small when I got it from the town gardener. It is a very dangerous species that could pinch the tires of vehicles.

Ten years after I planted this cactus, it became a nuisance and it spread all over the plot. I didn't want someone or animals to get hurt, so I am removing all these from the plot.

Now I need to have this picked-up by a truck for disposal to a designated town area...

Cleaning the Agave plant

This is a trimmed Agave with the lower stalks cut. I cut the spike on top of each stalk to avoid any accident. The farmers in Mexico have a special tool to harvest the body of the blue agave for Tequila making. They look like the body of a pineapple, don´t they?

I feel relieved now that the agave plants are cleaned and I can easily see any new growth that might come out from the mother plant. There is a need to trim the plant and control any new growth because if not done, they can spread rapidly and will over grow and make the garden wild.

The avocado plantation belongs to my neighbor below our house...we´ve had enough from the 300 avocado trees we´ve had in our former house that came with the property because of too much work involved.

It was a tiring day and am glad that the the garden is again trimmed. My problem here is the heat wave and this week, it´ll be sunny but the temps will rise again....till 40!? Hopefully not! Keep hydrated everyone!

xoxo,
Mers

GIF by @gremayo

Original text and all images are by @mers